Beverage or foodstuff preparation system

Abstract

A container for containing a precursor material for use with a machine for preparing a beverage and / or foodstuff or a precursor thereof, the container including a machine-readable code storing preparation information for use with a preparation process performed by said machine, the code comprising: a reference portion (R) to locate the code, and; a data portion (D) to store the preparation information, wherein the reference portion comprises reference units arranged to uniquely define a linear virtual reference line (r), wherein the data portion comprises data units which at least partially encode values of parameters of the preparation information as geometric distances (d) of the data units from a start position along each of a plurality of virtual encoding lines (E), wherein said plurality of encoding lines are circular and are arranged to intersect the reference line (r), and an innermost encoding line has a smaller radii than an outermost encoding line, wherein: 1) an outermost encoding line encodes two or more values of the same parameter, which are encoded in a sequence according to an order of use of the parameter, each of said values being encoded with a single data unit arrangeable at any continuous position from a start position; 2) an innermost encoding line encodes a value of a parameter, which is encoded as an average distance of two data units from a start position, and; 3) said innermost encoding line encodes binary information of the preparation information, which is encoded as an absence or presence of a unit at a predetermined position with respect to one of the units encoding the parameter on the innermost encoding line.

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